Hidden Falls Page 2

  “Look at us,” Quinn said. “I was barely five years older than you when you were in my class. You have no idea how terrified I was. Cabe, this is my good friend, Sylvia Alexander. She’s mayor around here now.”

  Cabe nodded toward Sylvia. “I won’t interrupt your breakfast any further. I just couldn’t resist coming over to say hello. I’ll see you tonight.”

  After Cabe was gone, Sylvia smiled. “Wasn’t that nice?”

  Quinn’s eyes followed Cabe’s path. “He was a good kid.”

  “Tonight will be full of moments like that.” Sylvia cleared her throat. “Now. Have you got your tux?”

  “Check.”

  “Some shoes other than the loafers you live in?”

  “Check. I even have black socks.”

  “There’s hope for you yet.” She tilted her head to inspect the hair brushing his collar. “Maybe a stop at the barber?”

  “On the list.”

  “Your speech?”

  Quinn picked up his fork and pushed food around on his plate. “Well. About that—”

  She cut him off. “Quinn, you must be prepared to say something. Ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “I have some thoughts rattling around in my head.”

  Sylvia snapped a paper napkin out of the dispenser in the middle of the table and slapped it in front of him. “Write them down. I’ve given enough speeches to know not to depend on memory.”

  “I’m a teacher.” Quinn carved off a bite of egg. “I promise to come prepared.”

  “Shall I pick you up?”

  “I’ll drive. What time do you want me there?”

  “By seven at the latest. That will give you time to greet a few people before everything gets under way.”

  “Sylvia, you’re an excellent mayor.”

  The statement caught her off guard.

  “I mean it,” he said, his yellow-brown eyes fastened on her. “You keep this town organized and running like clockwork. We all depend on you. I depend on you. Thank you.”

  Sylvia moistened her lips. “You’re welcome.”

  “You mean a great deal to me. I’m sorry that all those years ago I could not give you what you wanted.”

  11:18 a.m.

  Liam Elliott put his arms around Jessica McCarthy’s slender waist and welcomed the deepening, lingering kiss she offered while standing in the middle of his living room.

  She moved her lips to the side of his neck. “Do we have to go tonight?”

  Liam ran his tongue over his lips and stepped back. “I thought you got a new dress and everything.”

  “I did.” She laid her hands on his chest. “But I don’t have to wear it. Or I could wear it, but we don’t have to go out. You could come to my place. I’ll cook something better than banquet chicken.”

  “We chose the fish, remember?”

  “I don’t even know Quinn.”

  “But I do.” Liam recognized the pout forming on Jessica’s lips, but he was not going to give in. Not on this. “He was my favorite teacher in high school.”

  “That was twenty years ago.”

  “I can introduce you. He’s a town legend.”

  “I don’t need to meet a town legend. I know who he is. Everybody knows who Quinn is. The crazy eccentric who never leaves the county. Not a single field trip, not even to take history students to visit the state capitol in Springfield. And he calls himself a history teacher.”

  “He is a history teacher.”

  “Why does everyone call him Quinn, anyway? Doesn’t he have a first name?”

  “Ted. His name is Ted. Maybe Theodore. He’s just one of those people who goes by one name. That doesn’t make him crazy or eccentric.”

  “My point is that you’re the best thing that’s happened to me since I came to this Podunk town.” Jessica expelled a heavy breath, took her hands off his chest, and backed away. “I just want us to have some time together.”

  “It’s only a dinner.” Liam paced to the refrigerator and removed two sparkling Perriers. “It won’t be a late evening. Probably two hours tops. We can still do something.”

  “We hardly see each other, Liam. You’re always working, and it’s getting worse.”

  “I’m only thinking of our future.” He twisted the cap off one bottle and offered it to Jessica across the breakfast bar. “I want us to have a secure financial start when we get married.”

  She waved away the water. “I mean it, Liam. I have to know you’re not going to be one of those maniacs who works all the time. If we’re going to have a future at all, we have to see each other.”

  If? They were engaged. She wore a ring with an impressive stone. It seemed to Liam they were past the if stage.

  “We see each other,” he said. “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

  She gestured toward the corner of his living room that he used as a home office. “And look what I found you doing. Working.”

  His laptop was open and stacks of papers crisscrossed each other. Six different pens peeked out from beneath the disarray because he could never find the last one he used.

  “I’m just taking care of a few things that can’t wait.” Liam took a swig of water.

  “You haven’t even showered or shaved. Do you think I can’t tell? What time did you go to bed last night? Have you eaten?”

  He looked away from her. “Why does any of that matter?”

  “Because I asked you to come in after the movie last night, and you said you had to work. And clearly you’ve been working again all morning. Maybe all night for all I know.”

  Liam winced. She knew him too well. He was up most of the night, and he slept—briefly—in the clothes he wore yesterday. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “I can see that.” Jessica sat on a stool. “So give yourself the night off and relax. With me.”

  “I explained that my business has had some complications lately.”

  And if anybody at corporate got wind of Liam’s complications, he would never work as a financial consultant again. Or in any career. He would be spending too many years in prison to worry about his career.

  He could make the money back. He would find a way to cover that it had gone missing at all. He just needed a few new clients and a little bit of time. Ted Quinn was at the top of the list. Already they had met twice to talk about the services Liam offered, even before Liam realized the extent of his crisis. Quinn was interested, Liam was sure of it. In his fifties, Quinn was of an age where he was thinking about the future more carefully. He needed safe investments that would yield reliably as he moved toward retirement—though Liam had a hard time imagining Quinn would give up teaching anytime soon. Liam reasoned that as a single man with no dependents, even on a small-town teacher’s salary, Quinn was doing well. He must have paid for his house by now, and it was worth a considerable sum by Hidden Falls standards. Quinn said he had several accounts he needed to roll over and was looking for some fresh advice from someone he could trust.

  Liam wanted to be that someone. Several accounts.

  “I think Quinn is going to sign with me soon,” he said to Jessica. “It would be bad form if I blew off his big night. Tomorrow we’ll do something together. Anything you want.”

  Jessica rounded the end of the breakfast bar and put her arms around his neck for another kiss. “I promised my friend from work I would go to her baby shower.”

  “After that, then. You just call me when you’re ready, and I’ll be right there.” Liam cradled her face and kissed her hard.

  The doorbell startled them both, and Liam let out his breath. “Come in.”

  The door opened and his brother stood in its opening.

  “Cooper,” Jessica said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  Liam glanced at Jessica, who was fidgeting with the ponytail at the back of her head. “It’s fine. What do you need?”

  Cooper tossed himself into a brown leather recliner. “Do I have to need something i
n order to come see my big brother?”

  Jessica rolled her eyes. “I guess I’d better go cut the tags off that dress and make sure I have shoes to go with it.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.” Liam leaned over and kissed her cheek. “There won’t be another woman there half as beautiful as you.”

  “Hmm.” She picked up her purse from the coffee table. “Flattery is not going to get you out of this. I’ll see you later.”

  The door closed behind her.

  “Get you out of what?” Cooper popped out of the chair, scooped up a football from the corner of the couch, and spiraled it across the room.

  Liam caught the ball, but instead of returning the pass, he set it on the breakfast bar.

  “Ooh,” Cooper said, “must be serious.”

  “She thinks I’m working too much and not paying enough attention to her.”

  “And?” Cooper plunked back into the chair.

  “And what?”

  “Are you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Come on, Liam. Maybe she has a point. You’re thirty-eight years old. You guys have been engaged for, what, five years? What woman wants to be engaged for five years? Have you even set a date?”

  “Like I said, none of your business.”

  “I like Jessica just fine,” Cooper said. “And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t hate me. She gets along with Mom and Dad. What’s the deal?”

  “There is no deal.” Liam picked up his bottle of water. “Jessica wants a perfect wedding. Her parents can’t afford to foot the bill for what she wants, so we both agreed we would wait until we could manage it. I’m just trying to make some money so I can make her happy.”

  “Does she need a fancy wedding in order to be happy with you?”

  “What kind of crack is that?”

  “Just a question.”

  “I thought you said you liked her.”

  “I do.”

  “Then enough with the marriage advice. You’re thirty-four. When are you going to get a girlfriend?”

  “Oh, very smooth. Change the subject to get yourself out of the hot seat.”

  Liam laughed. “It always worked when we were kids.”

  “What do I need to wear to this shindig tonight?” Cooper slung his feet over the side of the chair.

  “Not your uniform.” Liam sat on the couch and eyed his desk in the corner, wishing he had turned some of the papers upside down. At least the laptop screen had gone to sleep. Cooper wouldn’t know what any of it meant, anyway.

  “I thought women like a man in uniform,” Cooper said.

  “Not the kind of uniform where the guy can give them a speeding ticket.”

  “It’s true that batting your eyes gets you nowhere with me.”

  “The sheriff’s office can make people nervous.” Liam got up to take his empty Perrier bottle to the recycling bin in the kitchen. And to escape looking his brother in the eye.

  “We’re supposed to make people feel safe and protected,” Cooper said. “Isn’t that what it says on our squad cars?”

  “Every theory has its flaws.”

  Cooper followed Liam across the apartment and sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. “You all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Liam pulled a bag of black bean tortilla chips from the cupboard just to look busy.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Cooper made two revolutions on the stool. “I haven’t had a suit on in ages. Good thing being a cop keeps me fit and trim so I can wear an old one.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” Liam crunched a chip between his teeth and wished his brother would leave. His brain was spinning with numbers.

  A particular number representing the total of the missing money.

  Various combinations that might add up to that particular number.

  Account numbers that may or may not be missing funds.

  Dates.

  Confirmation numbers.

  Missing confirmation numbers.

  Client telephone numbers.

  Reports.

  No matter which way Liam added it up, the outcome was trouble. Every time.

  He wished he were burning the midnight oil to pay for a wedding or save for his future with Jessica. The truth was, he was hanging by his fingernails just trying to figure a way to stay out of jail. The last person he needed to confide in right now was a brother who worked in the county sheriff’s department.

  “Can I sit with you tonight?”

  “Huh?” Liam made himself look at Cooper.

  “Can I sit with you and Jessica tonight?”

  Liam shrugged. “I’m not in charge of the seating chart.”

  “Listen to me, Liam. I don’t want to walk in and sit with strangers at a banquet. I’m serious.”

  “I’m listening, and I seriously hear you saying you can’t get a date.”

  “Maybe I don’t want a date.”

  “Yeah. That’s why you’re desperate to piggyback on mine. Fine. Wear the black suit.”

  “Thanks, bro.” Cooper gripped the football on the counter in one hand, hustled across the apartment, spun around, and threw a pass.

  Liam caught it and automatically tucked it safely against his chest. Once Cooper pulled the door closed behind him, Liam let out his breath and dropped the ball.

  He had work to do. He still had six hours before he had to get dressed up, eat dinner, and applaud a man he admired—and whose business might be Liam’s best shot at putting his life back together.

  1:37 p.m.

  Ethan Jordan, MD, swung his car off of Interstate 70 with mild trepidation. With only one stop for coffee midway through the five-hour drive from Columbus, Ohio, he had made good time. Several hours remained before the banquet. After an overnight on-call shift during which he performed two emergency neurological surgeries, he should have slept more before embarking on the drive, but he had been anxious to get out of beeper range and past the point where his surgical chief might decide to revoke the weekend off. He had made do with a two-hour nap, a cold shower, and the black coffee that seemed interchangeable with the blood coursing through his veins.

  His chest tightened when he took the exit. He had not been home since Christmas during his junior year of college, and he cut that visit short by claiming he had to get back to work at the part-time job that kept him in books and pocket change during his years as a student. The sleek black Lexus Ethan drove now was a far cry from the banged-up, used blue Chevy that he nursed through college, medical school, and most of his residency. The new vehicle was his one splurge in the face of the educational debt he carried—though the car was also in his possession by debt.

  He could have gone home if he wanted to, except that Hidden Falls had stopped feeling like home a long time ago. Each move through his education took Ethan farther from the sleepy central Illinois town. Although he would have said the growing distance was not intentional, he welcomed the relief it brought him.

  As Quinn used to say, “Not to decide is to decide.”

  And Ethan had never decided to come home, so he never had.

  Everything that disappointed him in Hidden Falls was behind him. Everything that shamed him dropped off the map of his life. A few things pained him to release, but the relentless rigor of studies and jobs and exams and residency left him little time for regrets.

  Ethan wished he regretted not seeing his parents during these years, but in reality he did not. And being within the city limits of Hidden Falls now did not mean he would see them this time either. Quinn was a popular figure in town and had been for decades, but a town population of just over ten thousand people and the price tag attached to the banquet to honor Quinn meant not everyone who lived in Hidden Falls would attend. And his parents would be at the bottom of the list. They had next to no interest in Quinn even when he was a friendly neighbor and a favorite teacher of their son. Why should they care about the banquet now?

  Ethan blew out his breath and tried to breathe normally. It was ridi
culous to feel like an embarrassed child. He graduated at the top of his college class, the top of his medical school class, and was five years into a six-year neurosurgical residency. In a few more years, his earning power would be beyond his parents’ ability to imagine.

  It should be enough. So why wasn’t it?

  Ethan avoided the main highway going into town and instead circled Whisper Lake first. He had his camera—he never went anywhere without it—but he didn’t expect to have time to take photos of the lake or the falls it fed into. For now he would settle for soaking up the ring of burnished red and golden leaves shimmering in sunlight and the brilliance bouncing off the gently sloshing water at midday. The lake had been his escape when he was young, a refuge from confusion and discontent. In the intervening years, he had visited countless other lakes and rivers and falls, but no setting ever tugged at his spirit the way Whisper Lake and Hidden Falls had.

  Completing his lap around the lake, Ethan aimed the Lexus toward the high school. From the outside, nothing looked different. It was the same block of unadorned white brick it had always been, with the same worn red sign in front.

  Ethan should have been valedictorian. A neck-in-neck race in his final semester surprised him. Ken Lauder had never been bright. He started cheating in the third grade—off of Ethan’s papers. Ethan had learned to be more careful to cover his work and more savvy about playground conversations. By the tenth grade, Ken started to lag in the standings to a rank more credible to Ethan’s assessment of him. Then in twelfth grade he made a comeback. Ethan never believed Ken was doing it on his own, but he could prove nothing. Even Quinn, who likely believed Ethan’s protests, said there had to be proof.

  In the end, Ken beat out Ethan by one-tenth of a percent. Ethan never let that happen again.

  Ethan drove out to the old neighborhood. Nicole Sandquist’s house had been next door to the Jordans, and Quinn’s was directly behind. The lots were deep, but Ethan had loosened two boards in the sun-drenched wooden fence, and even in high school he managed to squirm through to use the opening as a shortcut.

  He pulled over just up the block from the Jordan home and, in the sanctuary provided by the tinted windows, leaned across the passenger seat, flipped open the glove box, and extracted two envelopes. The first Ethan needed because it contained the details of the evening’s event. The second he kept because it contained the reason he had made the trip at all.